IOC offers support for Korean peace talks

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), at the request of North and South Korea, will support peace talks on the Korean peninsula with sports initiatives, the organisation's president Thomas Bach has said.

The countries marched under a unified flag at the opening and closing ceremonies of February's Winter Olympics in South Korea's Pyeongchang as tense relations between the countries started to thaw.

North and South Korea also fielded a joint women's ice hockey team at the Games after which Bach visited the North and met with the country's leader Kim Jong Un.

"We have committed ourselves to the request of both (countries) to accompany peace talks through sports initiatives and meetings, encounters and support for athletes," Bach told reporters on Thursday.

"There is more to come on short notice, in mid-term and long-term with regard to the upcoming Youth Olympics (in October in Buenos Aires), Tokyo 2020 Olympics and with the youth Games in Lausanne in 2020 and then of course the winter Games in Beijing 2022."

On Thursday the two Koreas agreed to field a combined women's team at the table tennis world championships after the nations decided not to compete against each other in the quarter-finals.